We Need To Talk
by SCEWT
Summary: Based on song: How To Save A Life. After both Mulder and Scully have been reassigned to different parts of the US they must come to grips with the breakup of their partnership. But when tradgedy stikes Scully is put in the hardest place she's ever been in
1. CH1: When?

**Hey Guys! This story is the result of a bored competition between me and a friend. I based this story on the song "How to save a life" by the Fray. Yeah I havent finnished it yet but please go ahead and read it and see what you think! Please review it!!! And all my other stories!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOH! Thanks.**

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FRIDAY 1100 Hrs

Dana Scully sat behind her desk in the neat Salt Lake City Bureau office. Despite the heat and all the daily hustle and bustle of office life going on around her she was sitting completely still. Every ounce of her being was focused on the large, white telephone that was positioned in the middle of her tidy desk. A soft breeze from an open window played with her short fiery red hair, but still she did not move. A clumsy co-worked bumped her on his way past and hastily turned to apologize, still she did not move. She just sat and waited. If she had a minute or two spare in her day she would often do this, it had become something of a ritual.

It had been exactly two months and four days since she had spoken to her ex-partner Fox Mulder. And not that she would ever bring herself to admit it, but she missed him, she yearned for him; his sexual innuendos, his big clumsy hands, his lame jokes, but most of all she missed the way he made her feel. When she was with Mulder she was safe, noting could hurt her.

After their fifth year as partners, the building explosion in Texas and the incident in Antarctica they had been unceremoniously separated and reassigned by the board. He was back in violent crimes in Washington and she was shipped off to Salt Lake City as previously planned many years earlier.

Why wouldn't he call? Had he forgotten her? Should she call him? Scully blinked as she sipped her coffee and felt a pang of guilt. She knew the answers to all of those questions, no matter how hard she tried to kid herself, she knew.

Why wouldn't he call? He had been so disappointed that she hadn't supported his version of events about Antarctica, she could so vividly recall how they had parted; it was just after the hearing and she was completing her testimony, she happened upon a glance in Mulder's direction and there was noting but desertion and betrayal in his deep brown eyes. When the board announced their decision to send her away he didn't even fight it, he just stood up and walked out.

Had he forgotten her? No. After everything that they had been through there was no way that Mulder would have forgotten her. That was the one thing she couldn't doubt.

Should she call him? She continued to stare at the boring white phone in front of her; she bit her lip and picked up the receiver. Her fingers traced over the phones key pad and punched in the number so well worn into her mind. One ring, two rings, three rings, she slammed the receiver down and took a deep breath.

This was stupid. She was acting like a fifteen year old asking a boy on a date. She picked it up once more and hit redial. She could feel her pulse pumping in time with the ringing of the phone in her ears. She counted as they passed, ten, eleven, twelve, finally the answering machine picked up, after so long apart she couldn't bring herself to leave a message and hung the phone up.

Disappointment spread through her tiny limbs and she finished her coffee and stood to pour herself a new cup. As she walked away down the isle between the small bland cubicles a noise caught her attention. It was a phone, it was _the_ phone, it was her phone!

She almost dropped her mug and she spun on the tips of her toes and walked with as much haste and dignity as she could towards her desk.

"Mulder?" she asked without saying hello or even her name. It was Mulder, she knew it, she could feel it, it had to be him.

"Scully?" It was him.

"Look Mulder –" she began, but was cut short by the beeping of another call coming through on the inter-office line.

"Look Mulder" she continued, "I can't talk now, but I'm coming up to Quantico next week and I was wondering if you wanted to get some coffee?"

The beeping persisted and Scully wished that he would hurry up and reply. Yet he remained silent.

"Mulder, please. We need to talk"

"Wednesday, at one? I'll meet you there"

"Thank you", she sighed and was about to say good bye when he hung up and she was immediately transferred to her other line.


	2. CH2: Why?

WEDNESDAY 1248 Hrs

Scully still had another ten minutes until Mulder arrived, but she wanted to be early, just in case. She sat, once again, in the cold, uncomfortable plastic chairs of Quantico's lunchtime cafeteria. It had hit Scully that after all that she had been through with Mulder that she was nervous about meeting him, uncomfortable even. She found herself fidgeting and ripping a napkin into pieces and spreading them around the table. The clock on the wall read 12:50pm, whereas her own watch read 1:03, which was right? Perhaps he had decided not to come. Another fifteen minutes passed and she was just about to leave when Mulder entered.

The oh-so familiar sight of him walking towards her, his long jacket catching in the breeze, made her forget about all the worries and woes that had consumed her mere seconds earlier. She was just happy to have her friend back. He took up the seat directly across from her. She could read his body language like a book, he was just as uneasy as she had been while waiting. He smiled politely, she returned the look, but could not bring herself to look him in the eye.

"Mulder" she smiled.

"Scully", he smiled back coolly.

She ignored his slight sarcasm, "Mulder we need to talk"

"I figured as much, plus you said that already on the phone"

He was really starting to irritate her, with his calm and cocky tone and even the way he was sitting was getting on her nerves.

"Why do you have to be like this?" He said noting. "Can't you see what you're doing? Bring the Mulder I knew back, please. Bring him back so we can just talk!" She was beginning to raise her voice and she could feel the anger coursing through her veins.

Mulder sighed, raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to speak. Finally, thought Scully, he's letting me in.

"Really Scully, that's the third time you've said that '_we_ need to talk', but it seems like you're the only one doing any talking…"

She began to yell slightly, "why are you being so arrogant Mulder?! If you're going to be like that then go ahead; you do your talking!" She at there in silence, waiting, trying to ignore all the funny looks that her outburst had attracted. He lent back in this seat and crossed his legs.

"No go ahead; it's not my place to tell the enigmatic Doctor Dana Scully what to do."

Scully was fuming. This man was not Mulder; this was not him, no way. This was not her best friend.

"It's not your place? It's not your place? We have worked together for five years and you've only just decided that it's not your place to tell me what to do!" she hissed across the table, fire filling her bright turquoise eyes. Mulder had yet to even flinch. He wiped his nose, "so you think I should have had this epiphany earlier? Whatever you say _Dana_, after all you do know best"

Scully began to wonder why she even came. "You know what? You're right!"

Mulder looked up. "I'm right eh?"

"Yes you're right; I do know best. After everything we have been through together, how many times have I been wrong?"

"I don't know, how about you tell me?"

"Mulder, listen to yourself! You are a grown man not a child! I know you've been through a lot recently, but so have I. Stop being so selfish and grow up!"

By this time Scully was already on her feet and about to reach over the table and slap him.

A surreal look spread across Fox Mulder's face. All of a sudden he no longer looked like an arrogant, cocky man, but instead he looked like a scared, defenceless boy. Neither of them could think of a single thing to say, so as Scully slowly lowered herself back into her seat Mulder chose to watch as most of the scared workers and patrons of the cafeteria exited.

They were now completely alone, apart from one of the ladies who served tea and an old man with a newspaper in front of his face across the room. The room was bathed in a deep humming silence, before Scully could think she had extended her small hand and was reaching across the table for Mulder's. He did not flinch or back away as he watched her hand approach. She was about to close her small, feminine hand on top of his large, masculine hand when all of a sudden the sound of his cellular device rang out across the room. He had to quickly retract his and answer the phone. Scully sat patiently as she listened in on the call as she stared absentmindedly out the window to her right.

"Uh-huh" he looked up.

"Yes, sir"

"Now?"

She knew that they had one of two choices here, she knew that Mulder knew this too.

"I understand" he continued on the cell.

"Is that all the information we have at present?"

"Yes, on my way"

He snapped his phone shut quickly and looked Scully in the eye intently.

"I have to go. It's an emergency. I'll call you as soon as I can" he turned ever so quickly on his heel and rushed towards the door. As he walked further and further away Scully followed him with her eyes and stood as she did so. Just as Mulder pushed the door open to exit he stopped, turned once again to face Scully and ran towards her.

He pulled her petite body into his arms and held her tightly and never wanted to let go. She hugged him back and for a second nothing else in the world mattered. She was on the verge of tears at this point, but when he released her slightly and softly kissed her on the brow as he had always done in the past she simply burst into tears and wept in his arms.

"I'm sorry" he whispered through a few small tears of his own,

"I'm so sorry". She let go of his tall frame and he turned away one finally time and sprinted out of the room and down the hall, out of sight.

As she watched his coat tails whip around the corner and out of sight she continued to cry, letting her head fall into her hands and she went crashing to the floor. She wiped her eye as she looked up at the rest of the room to see who was watching this rare display of emotion. The cafeteria woman was ambling over towards her with a cup of water and a towel, whereas the man with the newspaper had disappeared.

As the kind looking, dumpy woman arrived and knelt beside her Scully was unsure how to react. But as the woman placed her arm around her small back and pulled her into a hug Scully felt herself being so utterly grateful for the woman's presence she just sat there crying, she wept and wept.

This was all such a surreal and unusual experience for Scully, she didn't cry, especially not in front of complete strangers! She was Special Agent Dana Scully, she cut people up and made sense out of everything, she did not cry. As this thought processed through her over analysing mind Scully wiped the tears from her eyes with her hand, made an attempt to fix her makeup, stood up and calmly walked out of the room, as if nothing unusual had happened at all. The old woman called out after her but she could not face a discussion, she simply kept on walking.


	3. CH3: What?

WEDNESAY 1900 Hrs

Scully's eyes opened slowly and she took the dim light of her hotel room in. She flexed her fingers and heard the metallic crackling of the sleeping pills packet she was holding, she tossed them aside and rolled over, determined to wake herself up. She glanced over at the alarm clock on the bedside table; she should probably get up and make some dinner. On second thoughts pizza looked like a pretty good option for tonight. She rolled over a tiny bit further and inched towards the edge of the bed, as she swung her feet over and onto the floor she knocked her cellular off the side of the bed. It slid across the floor and under her bed, she reminded herself to pick it up later, after all nothing terribly important or interesting happened these days.

After using the room service phone to order a large pizza with all the extras she shuffled across the room towards the bathroom, grabbing a towel and clean set of clothes as she passed the dresser. She turned the taps on and watched as the hot steam rose in billows and got sucked out the window into the night air. Scully stood there, stiff as a board for what seemed like an eternity, just staring and listening to the loud, comforting, monotonous sound of the water flowing out of the tap and down the drain.

She climbed inside the shower and savoured the feeling of the hot water caressing her body; it sent a slight shiver up her spine. She felt so much more awake now and all the day's events came rushing back to greet her. A whole new set of questions about Mulder swirled around in her head like the water going down the drain. What did this all mean? Were they ok now? How would they keep in touch? So many questions to be answered, she hoped the Mulder would fix his emergency and call her back tonight. She climbed back out of the shower, immediately feeling the cold air prickling at her skin. She quickly dried herself and changed into the fresh clothes. She felt so much better now; she just hoped that she never ran into that old lady from the cafeteria again.

Her plotting of how to avoid that lady tomorrow was interrupted by a knock at the door. The pizza had arrived! She walked, almost skipped, towards the door to receive her bounty.

Just as she had opened the door and greeted the busboy she heard her phone ringing in the bedroom. It could be Mulder she thought to herself and immediately turned to answer the call, almost forgetting about the pizza. She tossed a fifty dollar note into the young boys hand and told him to keep the change. There would be plenty of time to kick herself for giving away so much money later, right now she needed to answer that call.

It took her a minute or two to remember that the phone was actually under the bed, she got down on her hands and knees and reached for it. Her little dumpy arms were too damn short! Scully lay flat on her stomach and crawled under in a further attempt to reach the phone. Just as her fingers grasped around it the ringing stopped.

"Damn it Mulder!" she said out loud as she looked down at the screen to confirm that it was actually him calling. It read '7 missed calls'. That struck her as extremely odd, she must have been in the shower for a mighty long time. Just as she began to slide out backwards from her tomb the phone began to ring again. She did not waste time escaping from under the bed before answering. She realised that if anyone had looked through her window at that precise moment a very strange sight would have greeted them. She almost laughed to herself.

"Scully" she said happily yet awkwardly as she answered, expecting to hear Mulder's voice reply.

"Scully, it's Skinner"

"AD Skinner? What on earth do you want?" asked Scully bemusedly

"There's no time to explain" he said grimly, "Mulder's got himself in a very dangerous situation, and I'm afraid he thinks your life may be in danger as well. I need you to get down here right now".

Fear, dread and all kinds of apocalyptic notions spread across Scully as she lay there half covered by the hotel bed. She didn't understand what was happening or know what to do.

"I'm on my way sir"


	4. CH4: Where?

gee this is turning more and more into a peice of fluff every minute. oh well! i suppose thats what it's for. I reallt hope you guys enjoy!

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WEDNESAY 2100 Hrs

After the long drive from her hotel to the location Skinner had given her, Scully was beginning to once again feel sleep pulling at her eyelids and her stomach was rumbling. But none of that mattered right now – Mulder was in trouble, and he needed her. She was hoping and praying that this was all one big mistake and she would arrive and find Mulder waiting with a big cheesy grin on his face, being loaded into the back of an ambulance with a few cuts and bruises at the worst. She fought so hard to chase thoughts of 'the worst' out of her tired mind.

As she sped down the barely lit rural road, using only the stars to guide her on her path, she began to see a dull glow over the horizon. Her car carried her over the small hill at the end of the long, straight stretch of road and to her horror the entire area was lit by the flashing lights of dozens of state and county patrol cars. Standing along side all the cars was a mass of police officers, they were all lounging on their cars, sipping coffee, talking or shooing curious residents out of the area, which had been taped off.

What did they think they were doing? Scully though furiously. Why are they all just standing around when Mulder needed their help? She drove her care carefully down a hill and into the large valley full of police. She turned the ignition off where her car came to rest and slammed the door shut without even locking it. Panic and fear pumped through her tiny body.

Pushing and shoving the useless officers and public out of her was as she continued towards what looked like the epicentre of the action, she passed a large black military type van with the letters S.W.A.T. printed in white across the side. She headed blindly in the direction that everyone seemed to be looking. Finally she saw it, looming ahead of her like a castle, its towering walls painted red and blue by the flashing police lights - a massive, old building that, by the looks of the many power poles and wires hanging from its exterior, was a decommissioned power plant.

Her steely turquoise eyes scanned the area until they came to rest on a tent about 200 meters to her left. This must have been the centre of operations.

Walking fast, she began to sprint, chocking back tears as she wondered what could have possibly happened to cause this much commotion? And more importantly – how did it involve Mulder?

With fifty metres left to go she looked up and felt a spot of rain splat against her flushed cheek. Within a matter of seconds the entire site was being pelted with a deluge of heavy, freezing cold rain. She stopped, turning back to face the power plant. She marvelled at how unnaturally beautiful it looked, the water rushing down the cold brick face of the building, dancing with the colours of the lights. Wiping what may have been tears or rain off her face she began to run towards the tent once more, quickly running out of breath.

She entered the tent, brushing the synthetic flap out of her way, and stormed in. As always the operations area was brimming with activity; techies calling up schematics of the building, special ops units making field reports by the minute, and a large group of officials and important personnel grouped together around a small table, deciding someone's fate – in this case, Mulder's. It was amongst this group at the table that she spied Assistant Director Walter Skinner.

"Skinner!" she called out across the room as she rushed towards him. He rose silently to his feet, pondering how to explain.

"Skinner, what the hell is going on here?" demanded Scully,

"Agent Scully, Dana -" he said in a soft voice. It was bad; no one ever called her Dana unless things were really bad. She was beginning to panic now. Her initial fears had turned to utter panic.

"Dana", he continued "Late this afternoon Mulder was called out to a VCU hostage situation"

"I know, I know, I was with him when you called, but where is he?" she looked around desperately, "where is he now?"

Skinner reached out and put his hand on her shoulder and began to steer her around towards the row of computer and television screens against the far wall, but she shrugged his hand off and followed his footsteps closely.

"I want you to understand that this can be a little distressing, but -" started Skinner,

"Sir, you know just as well as I do that I am a trained professional!" she shouted, but as the words left her mouth her heart sank – could she really handle what she was about to see? His eyes dropped to the first screen as he switched it on and an image came into life.

It was extremely fuzzy closed circuit surveillance footage of an enormous dark room; there were only two tiny figures in the centre of the room. One was holding a handgun at point blank range right between the eyes of the other, who was clutching his arm in pain.

"Mulder!" exclaimed Scully suddenly, losing control of herself. She spun around to face Skinner, waiting for him to speak.

"This is live feed from the only camera that works in this room. That's Mulder there facing the camera, and we can't get a positive identification on the other figure, but he's believed to be 57-year-old Yuri Mallat, a disgruntled employee."

One of the onlooking officers passed Scully a profile folder and she flicked through it, skimming over the suspects details.

"No previous convictions, apart from a few DUI's and one count of drunken and disorderly. Why would he do this?" she was really beginning to fear the worst now.

"His wife was having an affair with one of the other workers on the site. Originally there were 7 hostages: 6 construction workers that were half way through demolishing the east wing and Mallat's wife. Mulder was sent in this evening to act as negotiator, and fortunately" he glanced down at his watch, "27 minutes ago, for some reason all the hostages were released, even Mallat's wife."

"Why!" demanded Scully. "Why would he release all the hostages, just like that, and keep Mulder? It completely defeats the purpose!" she screamed.

Skinner was ignoring her, trying to be professional. But she could sense that he was worried about Mulder as well, "We lost feed after that for about three minutes, when we got the uplink back Mulder was holding his arm like that", he paused, letting Scully come to her own conclusion.

"He's been shot! Have you sent special ops in, SWAT – anything?" Hot tears were pouring down her face, but she kept a straight face, even though she was dieing inside.

Skinner looked defeated. "We can't". He tapped one of the people manning the computers on the shoulder and the young woman immediately went to work tapping away at the keyboard until a blue print of the entire facility was called up on the screen. He pointed at a particular room on the map of lines with his pen and it enlarged, showing an enormous room with only one long open corridor leading off it. A partial amount of the roof had collapsed inward, exposing the action to the cool night air.

Scully was tired, angry, confused and worried for her best friends' life. "So! Send them down the corridor!" She wasn't surprised when Skinner didn't reply. It was basic hostage recovery: never expose yourself, otherwise the gunman will panic and may shoot the hostage.

"What about across the roof?" she asked desperately.

"It's too dangerous Agent" replied Skinner.

"What do you mean it's too dangerous!? Mulder could die!" screamed Scully right in Skinners face, half yelling half bawling.

"What have I done? Where the hell did I go wrong?" she wept slowly, losing her composure for a second. Skinner was confused, but he didn't have the heart to ask. He put his arm across her back and she leaded uncomfortably into him.

"We've exhausted all our options. It's in Mulder's hands now. All we can do is wait."

Scully couldn't believe what she was hearing. She couldn't believe that there was absolutely nothing she could do. She couldn't believe that Mulder just might die tonight.

**NEW CHAPTER COMING SOON!**


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